Home staging — the art of making your home highly appealing in today’s volatile real estate market — is a smart way to spark buyer interest that can result in a quicker (and potentially more profitable) sale. When done well, staging can make your home look bigger, brighter, cleaner and, best of all, like the kind of space a potential buyer can imagine moving right into.

Brokers have used professional stagers for years, but there’s no reason you can’t implement some of their most effective strategies yourself.

* The first step is to clear the clutter. If you haven’t used something in three months, box it up and store it away; if you haven’t used it in a year, get rid of it. If you can’t do either, find a place to hide it, like a covered container. Be ruthless with furniture, too. Professional stagers often remove half of the owner’s furnishings, leaving rooms looking much bigger.

* Once the clutter is gone, you can swap out furniture and accessories among rooms; it can give your house a fresh new look without spending any money.

* Choose a few pieces of appealing art, and be creative about how you display them. Try grouping pictures, staggering them a bit higher or lower than the next. Or position them in a triangular arrangement. If you have high ceilings, consider hanging art in a vertical line to accentuate their height.

* Remove heavy drapery and replace with something light and airy. Natural light improves the look of any space and makes a room appear larger. Extend curtain rods to make narrow windows seem wider. If your ceilings are low, hang the rods at the ceiling line and let the curtains create an illusion of height.

* Once you’ve let the sun shine in, turn your attention to the artificial lighting in your home. Most rooms aren’t shown off to their best advantage because they are improperly lit. Aim for about 100 watts (use a variety of light fixtures) per 50 square feet of space. Once you’ve got lighting in place, install dimmers so you can vary brightness levels according to your mood and the time of day.

Don’t be surprised if after all your hard work, you find yourself wondering why you ever wanted to move in the first place. Do it Barbara’s Way!